The aim of this work was to build up a typology of logistical systems. The first step was to find out the key characteristics of such systems and to analyses them. These main characteristics can be named as “leanness”, “robustness” and “flexibility”. Based on the idea, that logistical systems are flow systems, a performance indicator system based of through-put time is defined for the three main characteristics. The use of time related measures made a comparison of the performance of different logistical system easy.
To classify the huge amount of real existing logistical systems, a typology is build up. The attributes are from three areas: logistics itself, the production systems and the environment. And they are number of handling steps, complexity of material flow, storage organization, factorylayout, in stock material, organization of production, processrepeats, productspectrum, production structure, source of the requirements, production program an the main input factor.
The use of the typology for logistical systems planning tasks is demonstrated in the last part. The paper ends with a targetsystem for the leanness, robustness and flexibility of logistical systems